‘Fühlst du dich als Deutsche oder als Afrikanerin?’: May Ayim’s Search for an Afro-German Identity in her Poetry and Essays |
German Life and Letters
Volume 59 Issue 4 (October 2006)
Pages 500-514
DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0483.2006.00364.x
Jennifer Michaels, Professor of German; Samuel R. and Marie-Louise Rosenthal Professor of Humanities
Grinnell College, Iowa
Until her suicide in 1996, May Ayim was one of the leading voices among Afro-German women and the group’s most prominent poet. In her poetry and essays, she addresses such topics as marginalisation, multiculturalism and identity formation and describes her struggle to live in a society where she encountered racial prejudice and stereotypes. Her texts map the stages in her development from rejecting being black and wishing to be white to affirming her biracial identity, which she came to view as a source of her creativity. In her poetry she not only depicts aspects of the Afro-German experience but also powerfully evokes feelings of abandonment, loneliness, love and death. In this article I will set Ayim’s work into the context of the Afro-German experience and highlight issues that were of particular concern to her.
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Tags: Afro-Germans, German Life and Letters, Germany, Jennifer Michaels, May Ayim